


The Flamel Experiments

by andrescutieri



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Corruption, Dark Daphne Greengrass, Dark Ginny Weasley, Dark Harry Potter, Dark Hermione Granger, F/F, F/M, Master/Pet, Master/Servant, Master/Slave, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-18
Updated: 2016-07-15
Packaged: 2018-07-15 17:52:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7232674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andrescutieri/pseuds/andrescutieri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A King locked away in Azkaban, his three Queens defanged and bound. A devious plan to send them to a new world, a new start. A world where the wizarding community is just a naïve paradise. A world where the Stone is just a simple artifact. A world where the Flamels are simple alchemists. A world where Hogwarts is simply a school.</p><p>A King of absolute power. A Black Queen of bloody knowledge. A White Queen of dangerous beauty. A Red Queen of never-ending violence. A new world for the Court.</p><p>And a new world for the Flamel Experiments.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

The Minister of Magic position had a lot of perks, but also some unpleasantness bundled in. One could argue that the prestige, luxury and attention easily outshone the never-ending meetings, the full-time politicking and the natural distrust people have of politicians. But one would be wrong to say so, for the unpleasant part of being the Minister of Magic wasn’t the talk, the bribing or the hate — those things were field game for a natural politician, and one would need to be a natural player if one wanted to achieve the highest chair in their government. No, the true dark side of the job was the yearly Azkaban inspection.

Most people thought Azkaban was a horrible place. It wasn’t, truly. No words could convey what Azkaban was, and if there were such words, they could only be part of the Dementors’ language. History books could teach that the magical prison once was a fortress built by a long-forgotten Dark Lord, whose ultimate fate was to be locked for a century in his own dungeon. But dusty old tomes couldn’t explain how the dark magic seeped into the very flagstones the fortress was built with. They couldn’t build the picture of darkness and dismay the narrow corridors evoked so naturally, or the sense of danger and pure, loathing hate that the walls themselves emanated. Only one book ever could convey perfectly what the chilling air and damp stone, constant darkness and the smell of death in the air could do to one’s mind, and the book was promptly tossed in the fire by its own author.

The fortress of Azkaban was hell on Earth, even with the Dementors long gone. Disbanded, after aligning with the Dark Forces, dispelled forever to some forgotten nest only they would know. But even if light now shone brightly upon Britain after their departure, nothing could really make Azkaban less haunting, draining and depressing. It was said once that the Ministry never really allocated the Dementors there, for they weren’t the guardians of Azkaban. They were mere its _consequence_.

The inspection always happened at the coldest nights. Not by design, but because it was always cold and dark there, and the presence of something foreign to the fortress surely could make it colder. Not only figuratively, but literally, as any person who held the position of Minister could attest. The inky waters of the Black Sea would frozen up around the tiny island if not by the constant tempests that ravaged the fortress. And, almost floating in the pure darkness and cold and hate, there was a small boat, with but a light, a Minister and an Auror.

His name was Roland, and he was forty-five. An Auror could make a lot of mistakes during his career, and a long sequence of them landed Roland with this job. It was his fourth year in Azkaban duty, and he had seen enough to never be able to sleep soundly again. He also had a strange tick, a kind of wince he would have at the most random moments. He also constantly touched everything around him, to the wet mast to the fledging enchanted light to his own salt and pepper hair to the Ministry’s coat, as if anything could disappear at any moment. It was his fourth year in Azkaban duty, and he was one of the sanest men there.

The Minister was tall, lanky and grey-haired. It was his first inspection, and he sure missed his well-lit, well-decorated, bone-warming office. Many things could be said about that Minister, but Roland wasn’t one for politics anymore. He had taken two other Ministers to Azkaban while doing his job, and thought nothing about it. Truly fleeting things, those Ministers. Coming and going too fast for him to care. He was sure the man with the fancy coat would soon be just another picture in the wall, while Roland would still be on Azkaban duty. 

He steered the little boat, ice-cold waves crashing around the little vessel, as if testing the charms around it. One bold wave sprung upon them, but the water was blocked by the invisible shield, pouring around them as if they were inside a sphere. The Minister had screamed at it, and Roland enjoyed a laugh hidden under the sound of ravaging sea. He felt a shiver, as if a dead body brushed dead cold fingers against his back.

“We crossed the ward line”, he yelled, his voice faint against the fury of the waters. The Minister glanced up, frightened and wet — the shield could only hold part of the waves. Roland felt his wet socks stealing the warmth from his body, but he dared not use magic in the sea. “Just a few more minutes, sir.”

The other man said something, but Roland payed no attention. He held up his arm, his old wand pointing up. Frost was setting at the bottom of the vessel, the Auror touched the mast, the Minister, the border of the boat and his own chest. Everything still in place. 

“ _Lumus_ ”, muttered him. The cold white light at the point of his wand flicked, but held. He kept it for almost a minute, them extinguished it, lighted again, counted, extinguished and repeated. High in the darkness of the storm, a blue ball of light appeared, signalling where Azkaban was supposed to be.

“What is that?” cried the Minister, almost falling on his butt when the boat rocked.

“The lighthouse shows us the way”, he yelled back, manoeuvring the boat with his wand. That took a lot of concentration, as the cold made his hand numb and his movements jerky. He winced, touched the mast, the Minister, his own hand, himself. Everything still in place.

“I’ve never seen it, you know”, the Minister yelled, probably trying to hide his fear under small talk. Roland counted in his head, waved the wand, touched everything. “Azkaban, I mean. What does it look like?”

“You will see in a minute, sir”, said the Auror, his voice lost to the wind. He waved his wand like a maestro, them suddenly opened his arms. Darkness enveloped them, the Minister screamed, waves crashed, a thunder was heard, and then only silence.

The boat floated calmly over frosty waters, and attached itself to a small pier. A thick rope snaked their way and tied itself on a ring just at the front of the little vessel. Roland applied a warming charm to himself and stepped out.

“Sir?” called him, seeing the Minister standing still in the centre of the vessel. “We arrived.”

Shaking his head, the man flickered his wand and his fancy coat became dry, he stepped out the boat uncertainly. He still looked up, in a daze.

“It looks like… A giant box?” muttered him. Roland touched the man, touched himself, touched his wand.

“It looks like a giant dong”, he muttered back, the Minister gave a short laugh, and followed him. The night was calm around them, at the small port, but there was no moon and no stars above them. If not for the trail of torches floating high over their heads, they would be lost in seconds. Azkaban loomed near, tall, dark and all edged, a squarish tower piercing the darkness. Light seeped from the door, but the rest of the fortress was enveloped in shadows.

Another Auror welcomed them at the door, with a gruff. He was seated behind a rickety desk, holding a chipped cup, looking like a pile of dirty robes with a very ugly, very round and very bald head on top. His nose ran, and he sucked it back noisily.

“Archibald”, greeted Roland, with a nod. He touched the desk, the Minister, the cup, himself. “The Minister and I are here for the inspection.”

“Wand”, grumbled him, pushing a device forward, like an old kitchen scale. A single metal plate over a coppery box, Roland dropped his wand on the plate, and a long strip of parchment was spat out the machine. Archibald took a look at it and pocket it. He took a sip from his cup. The Minister placed his own wand on the device.

“Everything’s in order, have a good evening”, mumbled the Auror. Roland gestured for the Minister to follow him. Archibald placed a well-worn wooly cap on his bald head. It had paw prints stitched on it, with the words “I luv me daddy” above it. The man spat on the ground.

“This way, sir”, lead Roland, walking up a set of stone stairs. Torches sprung to life when they were near, but extinguished silently after they passed. “Careful on the steps, they are wet.”

There were some doors to the left and to the right of the stairs, but they passed them without a glance. The ministry inspection wasn’t held for the poor sods who had stolen the neighbour’s chicken or summoned a Muggle’s wallet out of his pocket. Those at the lowest level would stay there for three months to the max. No, the Minister was there to the ones at the top of the fortress, those who would call Azkaban their lair for the rest of their lives. 

Roland was puffing, so it meant the Minister was almost dead on his feet. The Auror took a flask from his pocket, touched everything around him, and took a sip. Warmth spread inside his body. He took pity on the taller man, and offered the Firewhisky. The Minister took a long gulp and returned it, showing him an uncertain smile. Roland tapped the iron door with his wand, and pushed it.

Murmurs rose from the cells, the torches blinding the residents of the first wing. The Minister took a look at the gaunt, bone-dry faces, their wide, crazy eyes and filthy hairs and clothes. A woman was crying at the corner of her cell, rocking a bundle of rags as if a baby. 

“Who is that?” he muttered, discreetly pointing the poor lass.

“Mrs. Wittman”, answered Roland, approaching the cell. “Been here for five years, if memory serves me right.”

“She lost her child?”

Roland gave the Minister a sinister smile.

“Killed it, an Avada at point blank on the head. The husband had just found out the baby wasn’t his, but a Muggle’s. Mrs. Wittman poisoned the man before he could ask for divorce, then killed the child. The Aurors _stupefied_ her before she could kill herself. Spitting mad, I reckon, probably was even before coming here. One need to be mad to lay with a Muggle, mum’s always said.”

The Minister shuddered, but kept pace with the Auror. Others in the cells where crying or talking, but he didn’t ask about them. They approached around round of stairs, and went up in silence. Roland locked the door behind them. He unlocked the next one, at the next floor, and the Minister quickly inspected the wing, pacing fast and not looking to the sides. Roland locked it and up they went.

Even the Auror was tired now, but there wasn’t much more to inspect. He took a long breath before the next door, took a sip from his flask, the Minister took another, and the man unlocked the Upper Wing. This time, there was no light to spring to life, and Roland held a _lumos_ for them to see. The wing was devoid of cells, except for a single one. That was different, though, and instead of simply being dark, wet and empty, this one held a small bed, a tiny open bathroom and a worn rug inside.

There was movement, and a young woman stepped into the wand light. Roland had already seen her hundreds of times before, but he reacted exactly like the Minister, holding his breath and feeling something pulsing inside him.

She gave them a very saucy smile, and Roland felt himself going hard, even with all that cold.

“Hello boys”, her voice was like warm honey. The Minister took a step forward, but Roland caught his arm and forced him back. “Awn, please do come near. I don’t bite.”

“I have my doubts”, retorted the Auror, pulling the Minister along. He touched the man, the coat, the cell, the lock, his wand and himself, but dared not touch the woman. Strange lights danced in her eyes. “The Minister is here for the inspection, step away from the door.”

“I think we are done here”, coughed the other man, glancing nervously from the woman to the Auror, to the far away door at their backs. “Let’s move to the next wing.”

Roland closed the door quietly. 

“I thought the upper wings were the harshest”, muttered the Minister while they went up. “She doesn’t seen too roughed up.”

She didn’t seen roughed up at all, completed Roland in his head. It was difficult going upstairs with a hard on, and he knew things wouldn’t be better up there.

“She’s the White Queen, a demon in a woman’s body. There is nothing we could do to her that she hadn’t done before. We can only keep her magically restricted and content, sir. You really don’t want her to get roughed up.”

“I don’t see the point of a prison keeping its inmates content, Auror.”

Roland looked the man in the eye.

“On her first week, one of the younger Aurors went to give her food. She was bored, he stepped too close. We don’t know what she told him, but we can suppose. He opened the cell… She skinned him alive. We found here seating in the middle of her cell, door unlocked, wearing his skin as a coat. Then we negotiated some improvements to her cell.”

“She didn’t try to scape? Why?”

“Said it wasn’t worth it without her friends.”

Roland unlocked the door. He gave the Minister another smile.

“We are going to visit one of them now, be prepared.”

“Before that… What kind of improvements she demanded?”

“Well, sir, a bed, a rug, a bathroom, three dresses, three coats, three blankets and a box of toys.”

“Toys?”

“Sir, Auror Madalene got them, I have no idea what’s inside the box. But we hear her most nights, even from way down, at our lounge.”

“Playing?”

“Moaning. Come on, we need to finish the inspection before the sun rises.”

He pushed the door open, and they found another empty wing, except for a single cell. This one had a bed too, a bathroom, a rug, a set of shelves, a desk and a chair. There was a woman working there, but the Auror signalled for them to be quiet. They took a long look around, closed the door and took the stairs again.

“Was that the Black Queen?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What was she doing? Writing?”

“After the incident with the White Queen, we decided to ask the Black what she wanted to be more comfortable. She asked for books, so the Head Warden thought it would be funny to grant her request, but gave her only blank books. It was before my time, but the guy who showed me the ropes told me she just shrugged it off, and started to write on them.”

“And…?”

“The guys took some of them to read, maybe to find if she is confessing her crimes, something like that. They never did, you know.”

“I know. Personally”.

“Off course, sir. I forgot. Well, cutting it short, the boys found the books are written in some sort of runes, we can’t make head or tails of them. Sent them all to the Department of Mysteries, but never heard about them anymore. Some think she’s just writing bullshit, all alone in the dark.”

“And what you think, Auror?”

Roland unlocked the next door.

“I think we are lucky we can’t read them.”

The next wing had a single cell once again, but its occupant was sleeping soundly. Once again there was a bed, rug, bath and desk set. There were also some rough drawings, stuck to the wet walls. There was a single everlasting candle on the desk, the only wing that was nothing in pure darkness.

“I… thought she would be the last.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but we are just following your predecessor’s routine.”

“Is… Is she being taken care of?”

“She asked for these, and… Well, she asked for a cat. To keep her company. It was three years ago, sir. I think the Head Warden wanted to gather favour with you, sir, so he granted her a kitten.”

“Let’s not disturb her sleep.”

Roland closed the door.

“The Red Queen—“

“Don’t call her that.”

“I’m sorry, sir. We don’t use names up here. Some say it’s dangerous, that it can grant them powers.”

“Superstition, I guarantee. She was my sister, you know.”

“I do, sir. I’m really sorry.”

They reached the next door, this one had bolts around it, all the way up to the ground. Each bolt had a padlock. Roland took his third shot of Firewhiskey and rubbed his hands.

“This is the last one, sir. It will take some minutes to open, please hold my flask.”

“Auror?”

“Yes, sir?”

“About the kitten. Do I want to know what happened to it?”

“No, sir.”

The Minister turned the flask bottom up, drowning the last of the alcohol. Roland unlocked the padlocks and with a gesture from his wand all the bolts opened. The door whined loudly, and the room was incredibly cold. Their respirations fogged before their faces, their boots cracking the thin blade of ice on the floor. There was light inside the uppermost wing in Azkaban, but it produced no warmth.

The Minister approached the thing at the middle of the humongous room. It looked like a black metal box, 16 feet all around. It held no door, no window or bar, and looked solid. Vapour raised from it, as if it was hot.

“What is this?”

“The King’s cell”, muttered Roland, wincing. He didn’t dare even to touch the Minister now, but his fingers danced unquietly. “The food is banished through the cell, we must keep away from it.”

“How do you even know he is inside?”

“We can feel his magic inside it, the cell contains most of it, but some irradiates, that’s why we must not get too close to it. Man have died.”

“He shouldn’t be able to do magic here! What if he is communicating? Or, I don’t know, possessing people from distance? He could be doing anything there!”

“It’s impossible to communicate with the outside if not by some special owls a single Floo, Minister. The Department of Mysteries themselves forged and enchanted this cell, custom-made for the King. You don’t need to worry about it. Let’s get down to the lounge, the boys want to meet you, sir.”

The door closed, the bolts gained life and went to their places. The Minister went downstairs and got weak tea, mushy biscuits and some complaints from the Aurors. Archibald bade them good morning when they left. Roland touched the dark flagstone from the doorway.

“Well, at least I don’t need to do this again for five years”, muttered the Minister. Roland gave him his best smile.

“I don’t think I will need to do this for long, neither”, he rubbed his cold hands together.

“Let’s hope, my good Auror. So, where is the boat? I want to take a good bath before going to office today.”

Roland touched the stone, the Minister, himself, and his wand. He leaned on the doorway. Archibald was gone.

“I didn’t call for one, Minister, we won’t need it.”

“The Floo, then?”

“No. I closed it while you talked with the boys. And I killed all the owls this afternoon, before taking the boat to get you, sir.”

The Minister spluttered.

“You… killed? The owls? Why?”

“You made many questions today, Minister. But you forgot to make the most important ones.”

The lanky man inside the fancy coat raised his wand. He was shaking. It was midmorning, but Azkaban was dark and quiet as always.

“What are you saying, Auror?”

“You asked if the King could be communicating with the outside. But you forgot to ask if he was communicating with the ones inside here. You forgot to ask if I knew what the Black Queen was writing about. You forgot, Minister, to ask me if I had locked the doors after we left.”

There was a loud clank, and ravens flew from hidden nests in Azkaban, croaking loudly. Auror Roland kicked the Minister’s shins, and the towering man fell to the floor, his wand rolling away and disappearing in the darkness. The Auror raised his own wand, strode quickly to the fallen man and plopped down on his chest, his strong legs pinning the Minister’s arms to his sides, his bony hips holding the man to the frozen earth, his wand touching the taller man just under his chin. Their eyes met, blue against cold dark. Fear against elation.

Light was pooling from the windows of the fortress, splitting the never-ending night like sharp knives. The whole island rumbled, the doors banged closed behind them, sealing themselves. Screams filled the ceasing darkness, black and purple sparks of magic popping in existence, illuminating the two men locked together.

“What’s happening?” yelled the Minister, shifting wildly, trying to break free. “What have you done?”

The Auror was just too strong, too heavy, too crazy. A single spark burned the Minister’s chin, and the man under got still.

“Three thousand souls, Minister, three thousand inmates. The Black Queen told me, she told me, Minister, of glories never ending. Of freedom, when was just a lad locked in one of these cells, Minister. Told me the day I left I needed to come back, not as prisoner, but as one of the wardens, she had a job for me, Minister.”

Purple sparks floated around them, screams into the night, banging on the doors. Circles of light springing to life, emerging from the frozen tundra.

“Took me ten years, to be back. Then I started my job, that’s what I did. Do you know how difficult is to carve runes on these flagstones? Or to draw perfect circles around the whole fortress? Of course you don’t, Minister, you spent your life sucking balls to get this job, you know nothing about _hard work._ ”

The Minister sputtered, but Auror Roland just shoved his wand harder against the man’s throat.

“Where was I? Ah, yes, the Black Queen taught me this ritual she designed. Took me five years to complete the rune work and for Azkaban to hold the right number of inmates. Three thousand of them, one thousand souls for each Queen. Aren’t you proud, Minister? Your own sister is worth a thousand wizards.”

“What’s this ritual?” muttered the Minister, sweat dripping from his forehead. His wand was lost, he couldn’t get up, the screams were even louder, the light was pouring from between the very stones of Azkaban, the particles of dark light were circling the square tower as a hurricane. 

“Dunno, exactly”, shrugged the Auror. “The Queen gave me orders, not explanations. But I think it’s a time-based ritual. I think the three thousand sacrifices will move them through time and space.”

“Whatever they offered you, I double it! Release me now, let’s get out of here!”

“No can do, sir. How can a man got double freedom? Double happiness? Double… love? I love the Black Queen, Minister, that’s why I do everything she says. That’s why I put my own life on her altar. They will be free, tonight, gone to a world they will call their own. A new world to conquer, my Queen says.”

“But you don’t need me! RELEASE ME NOW!”, squeaked the Minister, trying once again to shove the Auror sideways. Roland pressed his forearm against the man’s throat, holding him down, the point of his wand almost poking the man’s eye. He smiled.

“Of course we do, Percy Weasley”, said Auror Roland, madness dancing in his eyes. “A thousand souls for a Queen, that’s the ransom. And a Minister… for a King.”

Azkaban exploded in light, screams filling the air just to be swiftly cut. A rift opened in the dark sky, and Minister of Magic Percy Weasley peed his trousers. Auror Roland opened his arms, his face towards the broken fortress and the rift of dark magic, sucking everything on the island. He was floating, the particles of purple light twirling around him. He laughed, endlessly, while the souls of the damned were destroyed to be used in the ritual.

“For the Court!” he yelled. The very frozen earth under them was being sucked into the rift. Percy Weasley saw it approaching. He saw his sister’s face in his mind eye, and her two friends, and her dark master. He saw the broken metal box that was once his prison, the twisted cells that feasibly had tried to hold the monsters called the Three Queens. He saw his face, the cold face of the King, the Bearer of Darkness, Bad Omen himself, Kinslayer and Stone Holder. He saw him for the last time, so even if names did have power, nothing worse could happen now. So he said it, as his last act as Minister of Magic.

“Fuck you, Harry Potter.”

Then he saw nothing more.


	2. Diagon Alley

Harry Potter woke up in a  puddle of light. His body ached, but in a different way he was used to, as if he had just slept on the hard floor instead of being chained inside a sealed box. He felt warm, he felt itchy and he felt free. So, for the first time in almost fifteen years, he opened his eyes.

The first thing he saw was a half-giant soundly sleeping on a broken sofa. While his eyes tried to interpret that sight, his ears told him he was near the ocean, inside a wooden house, with people sleeping soundly upstairs. Probably a woman, a very overweight male child and a barn animal. No, correct that, a man who sounded like a barn animal.

“The Dursleys, then”, muttered him, standing up. A huge fur coat slipped from his shoulders, pooling around him. A half-giant’s coat. He scrunched his face, and tried to remember what the hell was happening.

Memories flooded his brain, memories of a life at the same time his and some stranger’s. He was just eleven, he had lived with his relatives, they hated them. He had been beaten, starved, locked inside a goddamn cupboard and if rain fell down in Africa it was sure his fault, the Freak. Harry sighed, alleviated, everything was in order.

But then, three weeks before, all his memories diverged. He had found a Hogwarts’ letter on the ground, when Professor McGonagall once had came to his place to give it to him personally. The Dursleys tried to run from the letters, and instead of swift bloodbath, Hogwarts just kept sending them more invitation, like some silly child story. The night he turned 11, they sequestered themselves in a tiny hovel at the peak of a rock in the Black Sea. The storm came, as came this half-giant, Hagrid, with his letter. Then things got even weirder.

His Aunt had talked about his mother with contempt and jealousy, instead of fear. And what she said… His mother, happy and carrying toads on her pockets? Twirling spells for their parents to see? He never heard something like this. He never heard about a single muggle parent who had asked his child to do magic near them. He had heard of muggle parents vacationing in Australia when their child came home from Hogwarts, leaving behind just a full fridge and a bunch of excuses, like Hermione’s. A tapping on the window interrupted his thoughts.

There was an owl there, big, mean and impatient. It was carrying a roll of paper and a little leather purse attached to its leg. Oh, the Prophet. Maybe he would find answers there. He took a look at the roll, finding the price to be the same as he knew. The boy returned to the coat, pawned around, and found five knuts. He placed them inside the purse, took one of the papers, and bid the owl goodbye. He liked owls. Harry hoped he would find Hedwig once again in this strange new world.

He spared a thought for his three girls. He hoped they were safely back, and weren’t making too much trouble. He also hoped they would gather soon, even if just to make sure Ginny hadn’t killed her whole family. Harry closed the window, and cringed when his reflection looked him back.

Instead of the man he once was, a tiny boy looked at him. Oversized bangs, frail face, stupid glasses, too-big clothes, a wiry, underfed body. He untied the piece of string he had as belt, moving the front of his trousers away from his body and took a look. He winced. The girls would kill him.

He tied his trousers back, took a seat on the coat, glanced at the still sleeping man, and started to read the newspaper. It was, in fact, the first clue he was in a different world, even if the similarities were striking. The Daily Prophet was a piece of trash filled with Ministry-approved propaganda, that was for sure, and Harry thought that these kind of things were kind of essential for a coherent universe to exist: things fall towards the ground, the Earth goes around the sun, people kill each other, newspapers were unreliable. All was fine in God’s green Earth.

The headline was about a very interesting case involving a muggle, a drunk wizard and a cursed man-eating trash can. Arthur Weasley gave a small quote about the incident, Amelia Bones reported the wizard got his fingers back, but would spent the week in Azkaban, and Lucius Malfoy put a very acid quote about muggles and their disturbing need to get in trouble. Harry filled a lot of mental checkboxes with just a single news piece, comparing the two worlds. Arthur still loved muggles and their affairs, the Daily Prophet couldn’t report accurately what a muggle trash can was, Amelia Bones was the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and Malfoy was a prick. Nothing new, Harry started to doubt if he really was in a different world.

But it was a single foot note, at the last page, under a huge ad for Griselda’s Matchmaking Gizmos, that Harry found the first important disturbance between the worlds. For the small note simply said “Harry Potter turns 11 today - lucky wizards may spot him in Diagon Alley soon”. Now, concluded Harry, chance is this Daily Prophet has a birthday-of-the-day section, something he highly doubted, or…

“Ya awoke yet?” grumbled Hagrid, straightening himself, under the loud protests of the couch. “W’ere did ya got that?”

“An owl brought it, Mr. Hagrid”, said Harry, folding the paper and placing it on his lap. He realised he was already slipping on his cover, so quickly patched up the story. “I saw it was carrying newspapers, so I took one. It screeched and I saw I needed to pay for it, so I took a look at your coat and found some money.”

“Hum, ya certain ya paid it right?”

“It says 5 knuts at the top of the paper, and the small purse it was carrying had only bronze coins on it, so I gave it five of them. I’m sorry for reading your paper, I was bored and didn’t want to disturb you, Mr. Hagrid.”

The giant showed Harry a smile, even if it was hard to say under all his beard.

“No problem, ’n I should thought ya’re an intelligent boy. Would make your mum proud, I tell ya. She was quick on the uptake, too.”

It was the first nice thing he had ever heard someone say about his mother in both timelines, and Harry smiled unconsciously. Hagrid gave a short laugh.

“’N drop the Mr. Hagrid business, will ya? Makes me feel old.”

Harry laughed at that, and nodded. They ate cold sausages for breakfast, before going outside, the door falling from its hinges once again. This time, Hagrid left it as it was, and took the little boat they all had come in before. Hagrid told him he’d been expelled from Hogwarts himself, so he wasn’t allowed to do magic. Nevertheless, Harry turned a blind eye when the giant removed a horribly pink umbrella from his pocket, touched the boat and it shot up, almost floating over the calm waves. Harry supposed the pieces of Hagrid’s wand were inside the object. It would make any spell quite wonky, but a least the man could do some magic with it, and it was an untraced wand. The boy had returned the coat to the giant man, and was shivering lightly against the salty breeze while Hagrid read the newspaper.

“Hagrid? There is a note on the last page, reporting I’ve turned eleven, even if the date is wrong. Why are people so interested in me?”

Hagrid grunted, took a look at the offending one-liner, and sighed.

“How ‘bout we talk ‘bout it after shoppin', huh? Maybe over sum ice-cream?”

Harry kept his irritation out of his face, and nodded. He needed to remember he was eleven once again, and couldn’t threaten a blind owl while looking like this. He needed to plan his next moves carefully, or else he would be shoved back to Azkaban, or worse. He also needed to look like a clueless muggle-raised child, so he asked the obvious.

“Where are we going? Where can we buy all these things?”

“Diagon Alley, ‘course. Best shoppin’ district in all England. Ya’ll love it.”

Harry did look forward to the Alley. He needed a wand, even if he was quite proficient doing magic without it. He needed supplies, or else he would arrive at Hogwarts looking like a scrawny rut. He needed money, even if he knew his parents vault would be empty, the Ministry of Magic ransacking it under the pretence of compensation for war crimes. His last time around, Harry had stepped into a empty compartment only to find a scribble on the wall, hidden to anyone but a Potter, with the numbers of an Evans vault. If not by his mother’s secret stash, Harry would have gone to Hogwarts like a pauper, for the Dursleys wouldn’t spend a broken coin with him. 

The sea water was moving too fast around the boat, but some had pooled under his feet. Harry leaned over, and took a look at the water puddle. A skinny and underfed face looked back at him, huge green eyes hidden by broken and scratched glasses, a mop of unruly raven hair at the top. Long bangs hiding his forehead, where a long, thin scar shaped like a lightening rested. Harry touched it, tracing it. A part of him, the young and scared part that had resided alone in that body for eleven years recognised the scar as a constant presence, something his Aunt Petunia had told him was the result of the car crash which had killed his parents. But the older, mature presence in him that was once a king and a prisoner couldn’t recognise it. His past life held a lot of scars, but none shaped like a lightening bolt.

Hagrid was looking at him curiously, so Harry gave him a nervous smile, stepped on the puddle, and looked towards the pier fast approaching. There were questions dancing in Harry’s mind, but he knew the answers would come in time.

They went into the city, then took a cab to the nearby train station. Harry handled the money, as Hagrid said wizards used their own monetary system and found the muggle one confusing. Harry bought tickets to London at Hagrid’s instruction, and so they went. It took a long time for they to get to the other side of the country, but Hagrid was knitting a very large orange wool blanket and Harry didn’t want to disturb him. Also, they were attracting enough glances just for the half-giant occupying three seats, so Harry avoided questioning him. Instead, feeling tired from the restless night and the amount of magic the ritual demanded, he slept through most of the trip.

Hagrid nudged him when they arrived, and Harry saw the sun almost at its highest. His belly grumbled, so half-giant and undersized kid had lunch in Charring Cross, in a very small café. Harry almost asked why couldn’t they lunch at the Leaky Cauldron, but his brain remembered he shouldn’t know about it yet. So he ate his sandwich, keeping an eye on the other side of the road, where the old and decrepit bar sat smugly between clean and sparkling stores. People walked in front of it, their eyes jumping from one display from another, without even bothering to glance at the dingy bar. During the forty minutes they had lunch, only a single man walked inside the Cauldron. Harry found it very, very strange.

Hagrid asked him if he could see it, and the boy nodded, so they went it. The place was very dark, the candles and torches not giving enough light. It was cramped with small, round tables and mismatched chairs and stools. Wizards and witches had lunch, but there was only a handful of them. Behind the counter, Old Tom was polishing a huge glass cup with a very dirty rag. A man was drinking at the bar, but not a single one of the patrons even glanced at the half giant coming in.

Until the small raven-haired boy stepped in. There was a crash of a glass being dropped, and Tom put his dirty hag to his chest.

“Good Merlin, it’s Harry Potter.”

Deafening silence covered the whole bar, before a wave of people scrambled from their chars and stools and mobbed the newcomer duo. Some could even elbow Hagrid out of the way, just to hold Harry’s hand in a firm shake, just to touch his arms and chest or even face, just to excitedly shout words that jumbled together in his mind. Harry stepped back, unsure what the hell was happening, and one enormous hand held him close, protectively.

“Step back,” shouted Hagrid, waving his other hand and knocking down a small witch unintentionally. “Step back ya’ll, give the boy sum space.”

“Hagrid, what’s happening?” muttered Harry, Hagrid showed him an unsure smile.

“We’re jus passing tru, young ‘Arry needs to buy ‘is supplies. Tom! ‘Old your patrons, will ya?”

“Delighted, Mr. Potter, just can’t tell you, Diggle’s the name, Dedalus Diggle.” said a small man wearing a horribly mauve top hat, performing a deep bow.

Harry, still bewildered by all that, trust him his hand and gave him a handshake. Almost immediately, Diggle was pushed out of the way by a witch who introduced herself as Doris Crockford, starting a long and roughly organised line of people who wanted to meet him. It took the best part of half an hour for him to meet every single witch and wizard in the pub, ending with a very nervous-looking lanky man who seemed almost scared of his own shadow.

“Oh,” said Hagrid, tapping Harry’s shoulder. “Tis is ya new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, ‘Arry. How ya goin', Professor Quirrel?”

 By his face, he was going to piss himself in fear. Harry trusted his hand, but the professor seemed not to notice, instead he gave Harry a very shaky smile.

“I-i-it’s a p-p-pleasure, Mr. P-p-p-otter.” He stuttered. Harry almost rolled his eyes at it. How could a Defence professor be so wimpy? Hagrid bade them all goodbye, and guided Harry through a backdoor, leading them to a small courtyard comprised of a tall back wall and two dented trashcans.

“What happened to Professor Quirrel, Hagrid? He seemed almost scared of meeting us.”

Hagrid shook his head sadly, before wielding the pink umbrella.

“He is a very gentle soul, ya know. Muggle Studies professor, ’til the year before last. Went to sum sort of sabbatical in Albania… He met a colony of vampires there, I reckon’. Never been the same after that.”

Harry observed Hagrid tap a pattern on the stone bricks with the tip of his umbrella. There was a sound of stone scratching stone, and the portal to the shopping district formed before their eyes. Harry couldn’t help but smile at it. That was real magic, in his opinion. Ancient magic imbued with true power, capable of wonders. That was his kind of magic. Hagrid shared his smile.

“Welcome, ‘Arry, to Diagon Alley”.

 

\- - -

 

Harry supposed there wasn’t a single reality where goblins were less grumpy. Hagrid had guided Harry through the Alley, while Harry absorbed all around them. Most of the stores he already knew were still there, others were different, be it their location, shape or contents. There was a Quidditch supply store he had never seen, and the Apothecary was at the wrong side of the Alley, but all in all everything was almost identical to his home reality. Except for the fact that the Alley seemed shorter, the stores were larger, and even if the Alley was packed, it seemed… empty. In fact, Harry had never seen it less than crowded to the brim, people going in and out stores in a mad dash, children bustling between the legs of adults, running and yelling, old hags gossiping in front of displays, pets meowing and hooting and croaking. 

Gringotts was exactly like he remembered, threatening poem on the door and all. Hagrid made a spectacle in front of the Goblin, trying to find Harry’s key. The Goblin, called Griphook, guided them to one of the mine carts and they shot down, so fast it seemed they were flying. Hagrid looked sick, eyes shut tight, but Harry always had loved Gringotts’ thrill rides. He remembered the last time he had been there, with all his girls. 

They were arguing, something about a dress and a cat. He couldn’t really remember what was the problem, but he had pulled her on his lap, her eyes were shut tight too, one of the few things she still feared. He had kissed her eyelids until she opened them, and they had kissed, the lights of Gringotts passing around them, shadow and light, shadow and light, as they sped through the tunnels. He could feel her warmth in his arms, her hands on his hair, her sigh escaping her lips. 

They had dragged her to a cell, in the middle of the night, still nude from their bed. They had tossed her through the Veil of death, just for her to fall to the other side of the arc, shivering and moaning in pain. They beat her, flogged her, tortured her, searching for answers. They had cut her open with their knifes and spells, trying to recover the fragments, their dirty fingers digging her wounds, while he was held in the darkness, hearing their suffering. 

The mine cart stopped before a vault, and Harry realised he was holding the border so tight his hands were bleeding. The Goblin gave him a smug smirk, probably finding him weak because of the ride, but Harry stomped those memories down, relentlessly remembering they were free now, alive. Young, again, free of all the scars and wounds they had been inflicted. Never again they would need to go through that, through suffering and betrayal. He would make sure of it.

The vault was unlocked, and Harry’s thoughts were interrupted by the glint of gold. 

“What?” laughed Hagrid, seeing Harry’s unbelieving expression. “Ya don’t really think your folks’d leave ya a pauper?”

Harry shakily entered the vault, his eyes jumping from one pile of gold to the other. The money was haphazardly tossed around, as if Goblins had been coming there with a carriole full of coins and dumped them by the vault door. He looked around the small vault, roughly three times larger than his cupboard under the stairs.

“What else can one store in those vaults, Mr. Griphook?” asked Harry, without taking his eyes from the gold.

“Whatever you want,” grunted the goblin by the door. “If it don’t break the bank rules”.

At Hagrid’s urge, the young boy scooped some handful of coins and dumped them in a small leather bag, but his mind was far away, thinking about what else was under the pile. If the vault had been receiving more money in those last 11 years, that meant the money would bury whatever was in the vault before. Maybe he could find some heirloom, a reminder from his mother, anything. He needed to come back, later, without Hagrid, and better prepared to explore.

They took the mine cart again, but didn’t went all the way up. Instead, the goblin stopped before another vault, for Hagrid to take his “you-know-what”. Harry jumped out the cart, because everybody knew goblins weren’t too careful with safety protocols, and he didn’t trust the brakes of that thing. Griphook slid his crooked finger on the door, up down, and waited for it to dissolve away.

It was a very small vault, empty but for a bundle right in the middle of it, on the floor. Hagrid stepped in, took the parcel, and shoved it deep in one of his many pockets. Without a world, they went back in the cart, and shot all the way up. 

They stepped out the bank to a great sunny morning. Summer was holding up, and Harry could feel the tender fingers of sunlight caressing his face. After spending most of his childhood inside a small cupboard, and the last 12 years inside a locked metal box, he rejoiced in the warm light of freedom. 

He rotated his stiff shoulders, his coin bag clinking merrily. They walked towards Madam Malkin’s, to buy his first robes, when Hagrid stopped. He was looking definitely green around the grills.

“How ‘bout ya go in first, eh? Those frigging mine carts always make me dizzy, ya know? I’ll just fetch a pick me up at the Cauldron, ya—“

Whatever else he was going to say was cut off when a blur of movement collided with the boy, tackling him to the ground, hard enough for him to skid a little bit on the cobblestones. His ribs protested loudly, his face was covered by brown hair, his nose was assaulted by the smell of home. He closed his eyes, feeling the weight of being loved once again. 

There was once a time of his life where his plan was the most important thing in the world for him. A time when he would lash at his girls for deviating from his carefully laid out scheme, but it was lifetime ago, before he had to choose between his own freedom and theirs. A lifetime of sadness ago. Harry really tried to be angry with her for destroying most of his plan in a single hug. But he couldn’t. 

“Oh my god Harry I couldn’t believe it was really you I thought I was hallucinating  when I saw you walking towards me I had a feeling this morning I would see you but you know how much I believe in this kind of thing and it’s so good to see you again you look so tiny and I can feel your ribs how long have you been here—?”

“Hermione,” called Harry, shifting her around. People were looking, Hagrid was looking, but he couldn’t help but smile at her incessant babbling. “Breathe”.

She did so, while she released him a little. They were sitting in the ground, and he swept her wild hair from her face. Her chocolate coloured eyes captured his, her petite face overlapping the one in his memory, the woman she once was, the woman she would be. He suddenly remembered she had a very cute button nose at that time, and it was there, in her face, just like when they were kids. Well, there were kids once again, and her smile was a little different, her front teeth a little bit larger, her hair a wild bushy mess, her eyes still sparkling. He cradled her face in his tiny, weak hands, chocking in silent emotions. He had loved her with every fibre of his been, and he still loved her, even as a man in a child’s body. Tears drained down his wrists, she gave a small sob and hugged him again.

“Harry?”

“Oh, sorry, Hagrid,” he got up, dusting his knees. “This is my old friend, Hermione Granger”.

Hagrid seemed bewildered by that, so Harry swiftly made up some story.

“We met at a school trip and we exchanged letters every since. I had no idea she was a witch”.

“I’ve not been a witch for long,” said Hermione, shaking Hagrid’s huge hand. “Professor McGonagall came to my house last year and told my parents I was a witch and I was going to start Hogwarts this year. She said I was born too late for the cut off”.

She smiled at Harry, tangling her fingers with his. 

“When I read my books and found that there is a famous Harry Potter in this world, I thought maybe it was the only Harry Potter I knew, but Professor McGonagall told me it was a crime to tell a muggle about the wizarding world, so I didn’t ask Harry about it. I’m so happy I was right!”.

“And why are you here?”

“I wanted to buy more books. I already read all of the ones I bought, so I asked my mum to drop me at the Cauldron before going to work. I was eating some ice cream, oh! I left my purse there!”.

Hermione shot down the alley, to a place called Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlour. Harry laughed out loud, and looked at Hagrid, who was sporting a smile under his dark beard.

“You said you were going to the Cauldron, Hagrid? Can I wait here with Hermione?”

“‘Course, ‘Arry. Who would think ya’d find a friend ‘ere? Go on, go on, I’ll be back in a jiffy.”

Harry entered the parlour, and was immediately accosted by a very old, very thin man wearing a stripped lime-green suit. Mr. Fortescue had recognised him, and was offering him anything from the store that caught his fancy. After trying to haggle the man to at least let him pay for it, Harry was gifted with a double fudge and chocolate sundae, and sat down at a little table, in front of Hermione.

“So, I think the plan went smoothly”, started him, taking a scoop of iced delight from the bowl. Hermione’s eyes were dancing with happiness, and her table was crammed full with books. She was reading four of them simultaneously, in fact. “When did you arrived?”

“Just this morning. I woke up at four, in my old bed at my parent’s house. I looked around my room to find some clues about the day and time, while I went through my memories of this world. Harry, it’s different. Everything is different, even if it looks the same to us. I had to check out the facts, so I begged for a trip here. I’ve been reading all morning”.

“A mighty sacrifice, I reckon.”

She punched his arm without raising her eyes from the book. Harry scooped more ice cream, and took his time observing her, drowning in her lithe form, her wild tresses, her cute face scrunched up in concentration.

“Ok. Here. First, what I think it’s the root of all the differences. Nicolas and Perenelle Flamel made a Philosopher’s Stone sometime in the fourteenth century. They gained immortality and live in Paris to this day, but they never used the Stone for more than producing the Elixir”.

Harry raised his eyebrows.

“No Flamel Experiments, then?”

“Never once. As history goes, they never once thought about fragmenting the Stone or using it to keep allies around. Do you realise what that means?” she didn’t give him time to answer. “All those people, the Flamel’s marshals, most of the Wizengamot of our timeline… They had been dead for hundreds of years! And look at this—“

She tossed an immense book over the pile, knocking her own empty ice cream bowl to the side. Harry could hardly glance at the title ( _Hogwarts: A History_ ) before Hermione started perusing it, turning the pages faster than the eye could see. She stopped.

“Hogwarts have no ranks, no signs, no army. Even the classes are just… classes. There isn’t a single mention of torture chambers or ritual rooms, no executions and the last beheading in Hogwarts’s grounds was in 1487. It’s… It’s like travelling to the past. Look at this, they have the Four Houses and that’s it. You don’t even have to fight to death to graduate, and the tests! Ordinary Wizarding Levels, Nearly Exhausting Wizarding Tests.  One takes them at their Fifth and Seventh year, and that’s it. It’s… Harry, I think we have come to paradise.”

Harry said nothing, just ate the last of his ice cream. She glowed like a newborn star, and it made funny things to his young again mind. 

“And nobody even knows where the Stone is! Isn’t it incredible?”

His hand struck, fast as the lunge of a snake, taking a fistful of her hair and gripping tightly. Hermione’s eyes grew bigger as saucers, full of fear and uncertainty. A slow blush spread on her cheeks. Chocolate brown against venom green. The world around them seemed to silence, to fade into blurry shadows, until there was just their table floating in a small, lit world.

“The Philosopher’s Stone is in Hagrid’s coat pocket,” informed Harry, through gritted teeth. He yanked the tress a little bit. “I understand your excitement about this new world, but if your senses grow dull, you will be killed. This is not a paradise, Hermione Granger, act like a Queen and not like a sugar-driven child.”

She gasped, and swallowed quietly. Her gaze dropped, and her blush spread down her collar. 

“I am sorry, Harry,” whispered the young girl. Her eyes raised just a little bit. “Will you punish me now?”

Harry let her hair go, and the world seemed to slowly fade back in. A short laugh raised from a table at their side, a plate clattered on the ground, someone shouted for a rag.

“I’m sad to inform I won’t be able to properly punish you for a few years yet, Hermione. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is still underdeveloped”, Hermione giggled at that, her beautiful glow returning to her face. “But if I were to lenient, you’ll probably forget your place, huh? No, don’t try to deny it, we both know that, after Ginny, you’re the one that loves to test your boundaries the most. Let’s see… I think for being so inattentive with your surrounds — and taking advantage of our new lives — you’ll hold a different role in this world”.

He gestured for her, and she leaned over the pile of books. Harry whispered in her ear, making her blush, then go pale, then blush again.

“Will I have to hide my talents?” asked her, quietly.

“No. You know better than I how much a misguide can be fun. You can give your full potential in class, let’s make them try to figure it out. Also, as this is your first punishment in this world, it will be the longest. Let it be a reminder of your blunder here. Understood?”

“Yes, Harry.”

“Great. Tell me about Hogwarts. Is Dumbledore still Headmaster?”

“Yes. He also studied under Flamel’s, at least for five years. They discovered a twelfth use for dragon’s blood. I don’t think Flamel shared the Elixir with him, as he is an old man in this world. He also battled a man named Grindelwald in the 40’s, a Dark Lord of great power. He defeated the man, and by that I mean he didn’t kill Grindelwald. Instead, the defeated Lord is locked inside his own fortress to this day. Dumbledore is seen as a beacon of Light by the wizarding world.”

“Figures. Even if it’s true, let’s not trust him too much. He may not be a sadistic torturer who enjoys watching children battling to death, in this world, but he still are a power-hungry attention whore. If he never got the fragments, in time we’ll be able to overpower him. Did you discover why am I famous?”

“I did. It seems Grindelwald wasn’t the last Dark Lord around here. Probably because Flamel never became Emperor of all wizarding world, so there have been lots of power vacuums in the last centuries. A man called Voldemort—“

“Why are you whispering?”

“My books say people are afraid of saying his name to this day. In fact, only a single book _had_ his name. All the others call him You-Know-Who. As I was saying, the man terrorised this world for ten years, backing some Pureblood movement. He encouraged muggle persecution and started killing muggleborns. When the Ministry of Magic started fighting back, with Dumbledore’s help, he started a killing spread, murdering everybody who entered in his path.”

“Unpleasant fellow. Why didn’t the Auror Corps simply kill him?”

“This world is very different from ours, Harry. Not only in numbers, but in power too. This Vol… You-Know-Who was the most powerful man around, and I don’t think people here can pool their magic together. The Ministry sent lots of Aurors to battle him, but all were slaughtered. In fact, ten years ago, he was this close to become the ruler of the wizarding world.”

“I’m starting to see where I come in.”

“He went after your family. He found your house, when you were fifteen months old, at Halloween. He killed your father, then your mother. But when he tried to kill your, he vanished”.

“Vanished? What kind of bullshit story is that?”

“They never found his body, just his clothes. The room was destroyed, most of the house was, by an explosion. There was wild magic everywhere, very dark, my books say. Dumbledore went there that night, he took care of all the funeral details. The house was locked down, and you where left somewhere safe.”

“The Dursleys. Great safety measures. I would be safer inside a meat grinder.”

“Dumbledore told the world you had defeated the Dark Lord. He had tried to kill you with the Avada, but you reflected his curse back. That’s why they call you the Boy-Who-Lived, they simply adore you, because you freed all of them from the darkness. And they recognise you by the scar the curse left on you.”

Harry touched it. Traced, slowly, a lightening bolt scratched on his forehead. Hermione had tears in her eyes, threatening to fall down. He caressed her hand.

“They also love your mother, you know. Dumbledore told them it was your mother’s love that saved you. They treat her… like a saint, or something like that. Pilgrims journey every year to your old house, to lay flowers on her grave and ask her for protection to their children.”

“It’s… Well, it’s better than last time. You know people used to visit her grave, don’t you? To piss on it, but they went. It’s strange for people to love her. I… I really need time to think about it.”

“You know I never believe she was a mad killer. I thought… You know how our world is. Better, how it was. We were trained for it since our first step into Hogwarts. Some even before that. People resented it because she was too good at it.”

“Wow, and I thought people resented her for entering their houses and skinning they alive, gutting them and beheading them for a little coin.”

“Don’t try to be cynic with me, Mr. Potter. Ginny may adore this… violent side of your mother, but I never thought she could be defined by it. She died for you, in both worlds, it seems. I bet she would had been a great mother, in both worlds, too.”

There was a long silence.

“Thank you, Hermione. No, I’m serious, thank you. You… Well, you know you don’t _need_ to go with my punishment, don’t you? If you don’t want, I mean.”

“You are dangerously close of being lenient, _master_. You said yourself, if you don’t put me in my place, who knows what can I come up with? I’ll go with it, you ordered me. Also, since I’ve read they don’t put fragments in children around here, I’ve been thinking how I can get my sweet little revenge.”

“You know I don’t like when you and Ginny fight.”

“This is not fighting, _master_. I’m almost two years older than her, without the fragments to balance us out, this time it’s _she_ who will be pinned under _me_. I promise I won’t hurt her. Much.”

Harry shook his head in defeat. Some men had thought him great for controlling three powerful women, but so little they knew! One can control a woman, one can even control a witch. But only a fool would try to control a Queen. He would be luckier trying to hold a storm than trying to reign them to some semblance of control. He felt for poor Ginny, but couldn’t help to feel like she deserved it. Some thought Hermione was a very gentle soul. Harry knew her better. Ginny should never tried to take advantage of the older girl’s mellowness. 

“Will you punish me for tackling you to the ground? I heard what you said to Hagrid. I couldn’t help myself, but now I realise I probably hurt your plans deeply.”

“No. In fact, you made me realise I was being a fool. Trying to keep the timeline the same was a fool’s job from the start, you said yourself how much this world is different from ours. Furthermore, even if they were very similar, I would have no control of if. I can think of some decisions that I’ve made that landed us in Azkaban, but who can guarantee doing different will result in a better outcome? I would be too scared of doing what’s necessary, maybe even squashing this water beetle could alter drastically our world. I think I head of something like this before.”

“It’s called the Butterfly Effect. And you _didn’t_ need to kill it for real. This is _so_ gross, Harry Potter. And _don’t you dare to put it near my books!_ ”

“I thought boys do this kind of things to grab the attention of the girl they like?”

Hermione gave him a very mysterious smile, but he saw her blushing a little. The whole young-again-in-another-world would be very fun. She almost wouldn’t blush in the last world, and she was touching him not so discreetly all the time now, and curling a hair tress while making him doe eyes, without even realising it. It was so much fun! Well, he couldn’t say he was unaffected by it, it seemed his hormones where well in other, lack of proper nutrition not withstanding. He really needed to take care of it soon.

“I want cake.”

“Pardon?”

“I ate too much ice cream. I’ve read dozens of books for you, the entire morning. Buy me cake.”

“I don’t think Fortescue sells cakes, Hermione.”

“Don’t worry. I think you are a big boy, you are able to find cake for me around here. And toss this thing in the trash on your way out.”

Hermione was reading when Hagrid arrived carrying a beautiful snowy owl inside a cage.

“Where’s ‘Arry?”

“He went to buy something, Mr. Hagrid. Take a seat, please, let me move these books out the table. Is this owl yours?”

“Well, I bought it for ‘Arry, ya know. Think he’ll like it?”

“I’m sure he will love it. What’s it’s name? Is it male?”

“The seller told me it’s a girl. She still has no name, thought ‘Arry would like to name her. So, ‘ow ‘ave you met, Miss Granger?”

 

\---

 

A tiny bell tolled when they entered the store, but the place was empty. In fact, it looked almost abandoned, a heavy layer of dust covering the floor, the counter and the countless rows of heavy shelves, filled with long, thin boxes. The display was washed-out and dirty, a single lumpy cushion holding a wand. There was also a large, splint chair, where Hagrid took a seat. Harry peeked at the shadows at the back of the store. His arms where tired from carrying all his bags, even if Hagrid were handling the wooden trunk by himself as if it were a paper bag.

“Mr. Potter, I was waiting for you.” Said a voice behind him, making Harry jump like a scalded cat, Hagrid also fleeing from his chair as if he had sat on a pincushion. The boy saw silver eyes on a very gaunt, thin face, a small head perched on a very long and wiry body, almost like a ball balanced on a rail. The man was very tall, and his wisp of white hair made him even taller.

“Mr. Ollivander,” said Hagrid, seeming to get his grips. The man’s face became alight with joy when his eyes moved to the half-giant.

“Hagrid! Oak, 16 inches, rather bendy, wasn’t it? Oh, a pity they had to snap it.”

“Yes, sir. But I still ‘ave the pieces.”

“You don’t _use_ them, do you?” asked Mr. Ollivander, growing suddenly serious. Hagrid nervously fiddled with his pink umbrella, and muttered a very quiet ‘no’. Harry was about to laugh when the silver orbs came back to him, scanning him something fierce, searching for something in his own depths. Harry was glad for his occlumancy, or else he would suspect the wandmaker was reading his mind.

“You should know, Mr. Potter, that I remember every single wand I’ve ever sold. I also sold your parents’ first wands. For your mother, willow, 10 and a quarter inches, very swishy, nice for Charms work. For your father James, Mahogany, eleven inches. Pliable, in fact, excellent for transfiguration. Both very powerful wands, for powerful wizards.”

Ollivander’s eyes dropped slowly, while he extended a long thin finger, and touched Harry’s scar.

“And I’m sad to say, I also sold the wand who did this to you.”

Harry swallowed hard. Mr. Ollivander snapped his fingers and a silvery measure tape unfurled from inside one of his sleeves and circled the young boy. 

“The truth, Mr. Potter, is that the wand chooses the wizard, not the other way around. And while great things can be done using magic, some may do terrible things too. Which’s your wand arm?”

“I’m right handed.”

The man slipped between his shelves, taking boxes from here and there, while the tape measured Harry by its own. When Mr. Ollivander came back, it was measuring Harry between his nostrils. The man settled five boxes on the counter.

“That’s enough,” said him, and the tap fell lifelessly on the floor. “Try this one, Mr. Potter.”

Harry took it, and gave a testing switch. Nothing happened, so Mr. Ollivander snatched it back and gave him another, longer wand. This time, Harry provoked a burst of fire, but Mr. Ollivander took it back just a soon. In fact, it took a long time, and the discarded wands continue to pile up on the counter. Hagrid seemed more and more anxious, glancing at his pocket watch, while Mr. Ollivander was getting excited by it.

“Ohh, a difficult customer! But don’t worry, we’ll find a wand for you. Let’s try this…”

And they tried. In fact, Harry had already lost the count on the wands he switched, flicked and twirled. One had produced a loud bang, other started to leak water from the tip just from touching his hand, other had transfigured a paper weight into a bird, which still fluttered around the the shop. He had already conjured fire, frost, wine, a gust of wind which had scattered all the wands on the counter, a very curious smell reminding him of cabbages, and, for some reason, a very horrid china saucier. Mr. Ollivander was tossing wands inside it. Harry couldn’t remember how many tries he had to go through his first time around, but he was sure his old wand would have been tried by then, and rejected. Maybe his new body interfered with his magic, or maybe the blend of his old self and new persona made it go awry. He was really worried there would be no wand to match him, when Ollivander tossed him another wand, and suddenly everything clicked in place.

 There was a rush of warmth spreading from the tips of his fingers to the depths of his chest. Bright light shined around him, while a shower of red sparks gushed from the tip of the wand. He laughed out loud, relief colouring his voice, while Hagrid clapped loudly and Mr. Ollivander looked like a child high on sugar. But the moment passed, the lights faded, and with them his expression. Instead of his smile, there was now worry, and his brow furrowed while he glared at the wand.

Harry knew this wand was different from the one he held in his last life. It was roughly the same size as before, and the girth didn’t feel different, but the wood was very different. It was whitish, crisscrossed with reddish veins, almost like faded blood vessels. The design was unique, some of the veins bulging out the wood, like vines. Hermione’s wand had vines etched on it, in the other timeline, but the similarities ended there. Her wand was caramel coloured, but Harry’s was almost raw, without runes or carvings, quite pointy and full of chisel markings. Most of the bumps and vines were carved very roughly, almost as if the wand was unfinished. 

“Most curious, most curious indeed.”

“What is curious, Mr. Ollivander?”

“Ah! Don’t you look so worried, Mr. Potter. There is nothing wrong with the wand, I assure you. I probably shouldn’t tell you this, as you are still very young, but I always inform my customers about their wands, so I must now.”

Harry grew silent, and anxious. The man seemed to be lost in his thoughts.

“Elder wood is nothing something I usually work with. Powerful wood, deeply rooted in magical places. Not many wizards match with elder wood, but history is riddled with them. Great thing they did, some of their feats still remain unmatched. Alas, very short lives they lived. Elder wood makes very powerful wands, but also bring the worst kind of luck. Twelve inches in length, very solid, it will serve you well, Mr. Potter, don’t worry about any possible unluckiness. And the core… Feather of a phoenix. And that is most curious.”

Harry fingered the unlucky wand carefully. He was not one to clutch on fickle things like luck, but only a fool would ignore a warning, and he had many plans that would be greatly affected if he attracted bad omens. Nevertheless, he was not the kind of man (or boy) who would be affected by these kind of things, Harry would adjust his plans accordingly, so luck, good or bad, wouldn’t have much to do with it. And he would order Hermione to brew him some Felix Felicitis, if things come to it.

“This wand was one of my first creations, while I was just over my apprenticeship, Mr. Potter. They say the gift of a wand maker fade with time, instead of growing. We start to lose our touch with magic, grow deaf to different patterns. But it has been so long, I almost have forgotten about this one. The wood was cut by my own hands, when I still had to use an axe for it or my grandfather would yell at me for slacking. And the feather… Has been laying around here for longer than him. It’s a very interesting match, Mr. Potter, remember that the wand chooses the wizard, and this one has been waiting for you for almost a century. If nothing else, it would teach your magic some patience,” he moved his arm to embrace all the destruction caused at the store. “You will benefit from it.”

 

\---

 

Hagrid gave Harry a small envelope containing his ticket to the Hogwarts Express, and instructed him not to be late, not to lose it, and to keep his new owl inside her cage the entire journey. He grasped Harry’s hand in his huge one, and shook it warmly. 

“I’ll be seeing ya in a month, ‘Arry”, he seemed genuinely sad at parting their ways. Harry shone him a smile.

“Don’t worry, Hagrid, maybe we’ll bump around here. I’m staying in the Cauldron until September.”

“Wha— But ya relatives?”

“My uncle is probably upset by your prank, and they were going to visit his sister anyway. I would be locked inside the house for the rest of the summer, or would stay with one of the neighbours. I already talked to Tom while you were ordering dinner for us, I’ll be staying in room 11. Took a lot to convince him to accept payment for it, and I still think I got a big discount. Maybe I will put some weight staying here, get some extra clothes and read all my books. And who knows, maybe I’ll bump on Hermione again.”

Hagrid gave him a very knowing smile, as if his last point explained it all. Giving him a wink and warning him not to wander into muggle London, they said their goodbyes. He mumbled about tiny fireplaces, took some powder from one of his many pockets, tossed it on the fire and stepped into the green flames, shouting some name. With a flash, he was gone, and Harry was alone in the bar, except for Tom still cleaning his cups, and a very old witch muttering drunkly to herself.

It was very late, so the man inside a boy’s body bid Tom goodnight. He had much to do the next day, starting with some potions to break his cauldron in and to put some meat on his bones. Then he would need to go back to his vault, for a expedition in this strange new past. Maybe this time he wouldn’t need to beg people for tokens from his parents. Maybe this time he could be openly proud of them. And maybe he could find his other two girls and instruct them about his plans, instead of having to invent stories on spot. His new owl hooted, reminding him how some wishes can come true very quickly. Maybe he would fare well in this strange new world. 

He stuck his unlucky wand under his pillow, extinguished his candle, and dreamed about chocolate eyes. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thank you all for the reviews, kudos and bookmarks!
> 
> As someone in FF net pointed me, my punctuations where terribly wrong. As English isn't my primary language, I had very little contact with the way English novels mark dialogues. So, I back-edited the first chapter to keep it all the way it should, and I tried to do it right in this one too. If you find any mistakes, please drop me a warning!
> 
> So, just before someone ask, Harry and Draco still haven't met yet in this world, as Harry went with Hermione instead of going inside Madam Malkin's straight from the bank. Some differences between the worlds were explained, but lots still need to be said. Until the next chapter!


	3. The Hogwarts Express

There was something to be said about Londoner taxi drivers, — Harry thought —  they were at it for so long that they didn’t give a flying fuck about their passengers. Shady men in black suits carrying square suitcases? No problem. Strange women in tatters running away from somewhere or someone? If they have money, let them be. Strange unchaperoned boy with a wooden trunk and an owl inside a cage? Ask him to show coin first, then you go. The only thing in the whole ordeal that irked the man was trying to find a parking spot near King’s Cross on Sunday. Harry offered to pay him a little bit extra for it, and the man loaded the boy’s trunk in a trolley. Harry perched Hedwig’s cage on it, shook his hand, and bid goodbye to his muggle life, at least for ten months.

It was early, but Harry wanted to take his time. He parked the trolley near a small café inside the station and got rid of his last muggle pounds for a coffee and a croissant. Not the usual British fare, but he was kind of getting sick of it after a whole month eating at the Cauldron. Even good things can become too much after a while. As he was early and happy, Harry granted himself a moment of vanity, inspecting his face on the back of his spoon. 

The black shaggy bangs were gone. He had found a small barber shop crammed between two stores in Diagon Alley, where he got a better cut. While his hair would forever be a mop that refused to lay flat, there were better ways to keep it. It had been one of his girls that designed this cut, a lifetime before, so he instructed the barber how to do it, hoping to surprise her. He also got some potions to mix with his shampoo, so the hair would be easier to manage in the mornings. Pure vanity, he knew, but he also had hard lessons about how far first impressions can help a man.

He also had got rid of the glasses. Not only they were badly taped together, but also were the wrong prescription, the field of vision too narrow and he was useless without them. Finding the eyewear shop was difficult (in fact, it was in a small room above the apothecary), and convincing the wizard he was not crazy after explaining what he wanted was even more difficult. But after some haggling, some explaining and a lot of assuring, Harry Potter became the proud owner of the first pair of wizarding contact lenses. At first, he had pitied the man, trying for days to shrink glasses without making them unusable, and then inventing spells to maintain them and to prevent those same spells to interact badly with other magic. But when the tiny pieces of glass had stuck firmly in his eyes, when the world shifted into focus without frames limiting his vision, the man whooped in joy in unison with the boy. By the look on his face, Harry wouldn’t be the sole owner of a pair for long. If nothing else, coming back in time had at least help to revolutionise the magical eyewear industry.

The boy swirled his coffee, surprised by how better he felt after just a short month of intense maintenance. He was not surprised by how quickly his body had responded to the nutritive potions (an excellent exercise in brewing for him, even if it irked him to only use a single cauldron at a time, and being unable to adjust the flames with his traced wand), children’s bodies were remarkably easy to fix magically. And Harry had a very fast metabolism, his personal theory was his body had learned to extract every single nutrient from any food he ate, as meals were sparse, with long periods between them. He had spent the first week carefully buying the nutritive ingredients from the apothecary, mixed between other goods. While that kind of potion wasn’t forbidden per se, most nutritive potions were highly addictive, and too much of them lead to poisoning. Harry had brewed a very small batch of it, some bone-knitting potion, some stamina enhancing potions (while most wizards used them to solve erectile dysfunction, it could be also used as a supplement after strenuous exercise), lots of pain relieving concoctions and a vial of stomach ache relief. After years of almost starvation, Tom’s food dropped like bombs inside him. Also, he had chewed raw moonroot, to help with his treatment, which was highly acidic, so the vial was a necessity.

His stay in Diagon Alley was one of the best times of his life, it would only be better if he had his girls with him and a fully capable body. As all teenagers around the world in every single timeline, Harry quickly realised that puberty sucked. His body responded at the most random moments, his emotions were starting to fight his grasp and he had been looking at the waitress’ rump for a tad bit more than the socially accepted. She winked at him, and he very quickly lost his battle against a blush.

All in all, not every plan of his had ended like Harry wanted. The Goblins wouldn’t accept to leave him alone in his vault, and they charged mighty for the hour spent there watching him work. Also, no wizard magic was allowed inside Gringotts, so Harry had to explore his vault using his own hands. He had bought some boxes and lots of leather pouches, had sat on the top of his fortune, and started counting it. Filling the pouches with exactly one hundred galleons each was a very long and very boring task, and by the end of the summer, he barely had dented the pile. He had found some things under the coins, although: a wooden sealed box small measured, and two trunks, shrunk to matchbox size. The sealed box held papers, carefully laid inside to avoid deterioration by humidity or time. The boy had paid ten galleons for a blind copy of the entire content of the box. He had to request for a blind one so the goblins wouldn’t know what was written in the papers and paid ten times more for it. As the galleon was exchanged for fifty muggle pounds, that had been his highest investment yet. All for nothing, as the papers were written in code and he still hadn’t been able to get head or tails of them.

The trunks he let be, at least until the next summer. Goblins would charge him to unshrink them, he would need to lunge them to the Cauldron, and risk them to be robbed or, worse yet, would need to answer questions about them. Also, no matter what they would say about his family in that world, Harry still had a lifetime of prejudice rained upon him for who his parents were, and nothing in the world would make him trust the trunks to be devoid of dark magic. Once he had tried to open a satchel from his mother’s secret stash, in his last life, and had been cursed by it. Harry knew wasn’t patient enough to wait until he was seventeen again to open those trunks, but he would leave them in the vault for some time.

His brand new wristwatch told him he still had an entire hour before the train would depart, but he wanted to get on the move sooner than later. Pushing the trolley before him, Harry avoided the masses of muggles scrambling to and from their platforms, sidestepping busy men in suits, posh women in elaborate dresses and whiny kids refusing to listen to reason. Hedwig was sleeping soundly inside her cage, nonetheless, but Harry couldn’t blame her. He had been running the poor bird ragged, flying to and from Hermione’s house, exchanging vital information about this new world and double-entendre filled letters, totally inappropriate for their ages. Well, their bodies still had some years to catch up before they could do half of those things, but putting Hermione’s knickers in a twist was one of his favourites pastimes. He would deny loudly if asked, but in truth, he was missing badly all his girls. 

The boy with the owl stepped in front of column dividing platforms 9 and 10. The red brick pillar seemed sturdy enough to support the ceiling for a century or so more. Harry had heard young students would run towards it, their eyes closed, to get rid of their fear of collision. He always had wondered how muggles wouldn’t notice a bunch of weirdly dressed kids running blind into a solid wall. So, as he had time and as a first, he was alone at the platform, Harry closed his eyes, extended his magic, and subtly touched the magical barrier.

It was one of the most incredible pieces of magic he had even seen. The boy would be hard pressed to describe it, and he felt he had been unfair when he complained about the lack of information on the platform in his books. He could feel a perfectly circular barrier around the pillar, the taste of magic telling him it was a muggle distracting ward. He had seen others like this before, and magic was new, so probably some Ministry employee had come to the platform the previous night or very early that same day to ward the place against muggle eyes. Anything strange would be ignored by non-magical folk, and they would even sidestep the barrier, giving the families some space around the entrance. A fine piece of magic, but one which paled in front of the barrier itself.

Hermione was a specialist in folded wizardspace. She even had a four-dimensional full-fledged room inside a handbag to prove it. At least, she had had it, a lifetime before. Wizardspace had been one of her fascinations, the ability to _create_ space. She had proved it arithmantically, when she was 18, earning her a master’s degree in Arithmancy in Genevra, the youngest witch to ever do so. Her theory, if Harry remembered it well, proposed that wizardspace started as a dent in the space-time fabric, slowly pushed _downwards_ , creating a sac-like deformation, inside which natural life could exist, live and age. As Hermione had proved it, the space around the sac isn’t stretched out, as if one were simply moving it around to create wizardspace, but everything was kept the way it is, that proved wizards could conjure extra space-time, and the excess of it would create the wizardspace. She had been working hard on proving that a ball-like space was the natural form of wizardspace, with possible implications that the entire universe was ball-shaped when she was captured and locked in Azkaban. Harry really wished she would remember to take a look magically at the platform.

It was the biggest wizardspace he had ever seen. The barrier, hidden behind an illusion complementing the pillar face, looked like a round mouth, leading to an incredibly deformed wizardspace. Harry mentally calculated the platform was _cone-shaped_ instead of round, holding the entire stone platform, two food stands, a huge train and probably a quarter of the entire wizarding populace in Britain. In fact, it would explain why it was forbidden to apparate directly to the platform, as apparating inside wizardspace was one of the most dangerous feats of magic. The annual crossing through the muggle station just to get to Platform 9 3/4 wasn’t just a tradition or a misguided attempt at integration, but a real _necessity_. And the tracks! They simply went _outside_ the wizardspace, bursting the sideways cone, as if trying to get out of the tip of it. Harry always had supposed the station was, in fact, in another place altogether, and the barrier on the pillar simply transported them there. But somehow the platform was inside the pillar, and the train could move magically from inside to the outside of wizardspace. 

The station hadn’t been there for more than a century. Before that, the trip to Hogwarts was done from other station, and before _that_ it was done on carriages. The train which had become the symbol of the school, used three times to get students to other countries for the Triwizard Tournament, was barely a hundred years old. It was mind-blowing to know the knowledge and magical power to create something like Platform 9 3/4 had been lost forever in less than a century, even with the Flamels themselves been older than that. In that new world, where wizarding lives were barely longer than a hundred years, it probably had been lost in a handful of years. If that wasn’t a sure sign of the decay of wizarding lifestyle, Harry didn’t know what else could be.

“Packed with muggles, of course,” said someone near him, and he almost jumped out of his skin. He glanced quickly at his watch and was surprised he had past almost an entire hour admiring an invisible piece of magic embedded in the wall. “Now, which’s the platform number, Ron dear?”.

“Yes, Ronnikins, which is the platform number?”

“Enlighten us with your knowledge, Ronny-bear”.

“Oi, shut up you two!”

Harry looked behind and felt her heart pounce in his chest. They were different, that’s for sure, and so, so young. First the older woman, proud and plump, red hair fanning around her head and a gentle smile on her face. She was trying valiantly to hold a boy’s hand, while he kept dodging her. Tall for his age, long-nosed and made entirely of knees and elbows, he slouched as if trying to avert the attention his family was showering him with. At his side, two older boys, identical to the last freckle, grinning wickedly at their younger brother. To the other side of the woman, a taller, older boy, preening like a peacock, almost strutting while he pushed his trolley, a badge pinned to the front of his clothes shining almost loudly. Harry knew it to be an attention-grabbing spell. 

“Oh, dear, are you a first year? Are you lost?”

“Yes,” answered Harry, fighting to keep his eyes on her face, for else they would wander around, searching… “Do I need to just walk into the pillar?”

“Yes, you can run if you are nervous. It’s Ronald’s first year too. Percy, show him how to do it”.

Percy was in his element there, all eyes on him. He gave Harry a proud nod, swagged towards the pillar, stopped, and ran a little bit, the front of his trolley touching the red bricks and being swallowed by them as if the redhead boy were getting under a waterfall. Harry blinked, and the boy was gone. 

“Want to try it?” said the woman, gently. Harry shrugged, nodded and walked into the pillar.

The barrier felt cold to his touch as if he really were crossing water. He kept his pace steady, getting away from the entrance to avoid been run over by the next person to cross. He glanced back, to the brick wall the same colour as the pillar at the other side. There was a stone arch framing it, just to signal the right stop to cross. Harry had once heard about a distracted boy who tried to cross back to the station at the wrong wall and had broken his nose. Deepbottom something. It was long before his time, anyway.

The twins crossed one after the other, then the younger boy, his ears red from embarrassment and a smudge on his nose. Harry noticed their ragged trunks, second-hand robes, and a single owl, owned by the older boy. He waited, waited with all his heart, almost praying.

The next to cross wasn’t a plump woman in a patched blue dress. It was a small girl. She raised her eyes, and he felt his heart stop.

“So, what’s your name, dear?”

“I’m Harry Potter, ma’am”, answered Harry, prying his eyes from the lithe form. Her hair was longer than he remembered by then. Her face smoother. Her eyes browner. Hedwig hooted, wrenched from her slumber by all the noise at the station. The scarlet red locomotive blowing white smoke rings from its chimney. It whistled loudly. Time to embark.

“ _The_ Harry Potter?”, asked Percy, seeing him as if under a brand new light. Harry tried hard not to grimace. “It’s an honour—”

“Yes! An honour indeed, Mr. Potter,”

“Such a pleasure, I can’t even,”

“Delightful,”

“There are no words to—“

“Enough! Fred, George, help Ron get his trunk on the train. And this year, _please_ do behave. If I get another owl from Prof. McGonagall for something like you two blowing a Hogwarts’ toilet…”

“We’ve _never_ blown a toilet, mom,”

“But thanks for the idea”.

“ _I am warning you_. Take care. And Percy, keep an eye on them for me.”

“Don’t you worry, mother, it’s even part of my Prefect duties, now.”

“Wow, Perce, you are a Prefect, huh. I think you mentioned it this summer.”

“Once—“

“Twice—“

“One day—“

“The whole summer—“

The voices faded towards the train. Ron shuffled under his mother watchful gaze, she latched on him with a spat-on handkerchief, trying to clean his smudge. Harry was silent, nailed to the ground by the weight of all the words he wanted to say but couldn’t. He had a plan, he needed to stick to it. He so wanted to not have it anymore.

“I’m Ginny Weasley,” said her, in a quiet, steady voice, taking his hand in hers, her tiny, warm fingers wrapping around his in a vice-like grip. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Harry.”

“Good things, I hope… Ginny.”

“Mostly.”

He laughed out, she blushed a little, he asked her if she was going to Hogwarts soon. He didn’t want to release her hand. She smiled at him, her brown eyes dancing to their own secret tune. 

“Goodbye then, thank you for your help, Mrs. Weasley. See you next year, Ms. Weasley.”

“You bet, Mr. Potter”, then she lunged, taking him by surprise, kissing softly his cheek. Her entire face got red as a tomato, her head dropped so her hair could hide her face, and she stepped behind her mother. 

“Take care”, she muttered, but he heard. His heart ached, her mother looked at them bewildered, he gave them a half-hearted wave, and got into the train, lugging a trunk and an owl with him.

 

.TFE.

 

He didn’t need to walk much before finding Hermione. Her compartment was near the front of the train, where the lower years congregated. She was alone, reading a book, her feet propped on the seat in front of her. She was so small once again that she needed to sit all crooked, her butt almost falling from her seat, for her legs to reach the front bench. He tapped the glass and she almost fell. Her smile and her blush could almost heal his torn heart. Not for the first time in his life, he wished Ginny to swap birthdays with Ron. Her seventh year had been the worst one in their lives, she been stuck at Hogwarts, all alone, while they struggled to plan and to achieve without her presence. Hermione had even shrunk the bed once, trying to curb the lingering absence Ginny had left behind.

It hadn’t work then. It wouldn’t work, once more.

“Why are you late? It thought you’d have come early.”

“I kinda lost the sense of time admiring the platform. Did you know—?”

“That we are in a cone-shaped wizardspace, inside a trans-space scarlet train? Yes. I’ve been working on it in my free time. But I think I won’t be able to understand it better until I can do magic outside school. You look good, by the way.”

Her blush told him much more than her words. Harry smiled, reached with his arms and hugged her. She smelled good, her head tucked under his chin. He thanked whoever had invented nutrient potions and potion-induced growth spurts. Something felt different, he slid his arms a little bit lower and crushed her on his chest. She yelped.

“You got tits?”

He regretted it almost immediately. He also would sport a red handprint on his cheek for most of the trip. It wasn’t the first time Hermione informed him in no short words how he could be very crass when he wasn’t watching himself. 

“Close the curtains, Harry”, she ordered, fumbling inside her handbag. Harry slid his trunk on the overhead rack, seated Hedwig’s cage on the floor, just under the window and closed the curtains over it, doing the same with the small glass on the door. He heard some rustle behind him and turned to look.

She was naked, and a very tiny part of his mind wondered if what he felt then should be considered an unhealthy desire for a pre-teen girl. But as he was a pre-teen himself, the biggest, more focused part of his mind told the other to shut up and drink the view. So he did. Hermione slipped some knickers on, fastened a white bra around herself and rotated her shoulders to fill it better.

“Hermione Granger using potions for breast gain? One can wonder—“

“I think you are the last person who can talk about potion-induced growth. And let me remind you that, exactly like your new contact lenses, I’m doing it because I won’t be implanted with fragments tonight to enhance my magic and correct all my body flaws.”

“There sure isn’t much to correct.”

“Cute. But you aren’t out of the doghouse for being vulgar, mister.”

“You slap me for saying ‘tits’ and then get naked in front of me?”

“Yes. Now hold this for me, steady.”

Harry fumbled to open the compact mirror and hold it in front of her face. She made a face, curling her upper lip, pointed her own wand at her mouth. There was the rush of a spell, and her upper teeth started to shrink, very slowly. She used her left indicator to hold her lip up, carefully opened her mouth and closed it again. The spell ended, and she gifted him with a perfect smile. 

“I see you’re going full out about it, Hermione.”

“Of course, I’m very serious about punishment, _master_.”

She got fully dressed in her uniform, touched her hair with her wand and fastened golden loops through her ears. After spraying a little bit of perfume and applying her makeup, she showed herself to him, giving a little loop in her place. 

“So, do I look like a strumpet?”

For the first in a long time, Harry had no words to offer. The small girl smiled at him not as a pre-teen, but as a young teenager, and if ‘cute’ could describe her before, Harry quickly found the word couldn’t do justice to her. Hermione was wearing a very short standard black skirt, her legs seeming longer, his eyes sliding over them until arriving at her Mary Janes and dark grey socks. The white Polo shirt showed the visible curve of her small breasts, her dark grey tie hanging loose, the knot almost an inch under the unbuttoned shirt. She wore her black robes open, showing the uniform under it, and the golden earrings made a nice touch, glinting through her now curly and tall hair. Down to the minute details, Hermione had painted her lips with a glossy pale pink lipstick, keeping them discreet but moist-looking, dusted her eyelids to show a little bit darker and her naturally long eyelashes were more evident. Her faint perfume of lilac wrapped around his mind.

He was kissing her. There was no movement, no instant in time between her proud smile over her new appearance and her being pressed against the door, his lips devouring her, tasting the sweet strawberry flavour of the gloss, ruining her carefully applied lipstick, tangling fingers in her hair, making her earrings dangle madly. Her black-painted nails were on his skin, under the back of his shirt, and in the next moment on his hair, his nape, her hands around his face, her small tongue against his, his knee pressing between her legs, parting then, feeling the pleated skirt flare open around her thighs, his hands pulling the shirt from under it, invading it, circling her belly with his warm fingers, drinking the heat of her skin. 

Her hands pushed him away, just before he could bite her neck. The daze seemed to lift a little, but still held, and he tried to suck her shivering skin in his mouth, but she was strong for her age, and could push him more. He sighed, withdrew his hands from under her shirt and trapped her head between his arms, his hands resting against the cold wood of the door. She rested her small, fire-hot hand on his leg, and he removed his knee from between hers, letting the skirt flow down once again, even if not by much. It really was short, and he wanted to touch her smooth thighs, but he held.

“If you kiss me like that, it will be hard for people to believe we’re just kids, Harry.”

“I’m wholly inclined to toss the plan in the fire.”

She laughed.

“I’m flattened. Really. But there are things more important than snogging wildly.”

“Are there?”

She laughed again.

“Get your head out the gutter, mister. We have much to discuss. But… Off the record, I’m inclined to throw everything away and snog you, too.”

Harry closed his eyes, but the perfume seemed to get stronger if he did that, so he let his arms fall limply to his sides. Her chocolate coloured eyes were darker, fiercer. There was once a time when she couldn’t look people in the eyes, except for when she was passionately defending her ideals or sprouting random facts about the wizarding world. Harry and his other girls had to teach her to be more confident in herself, had to make her feel beautiful and powerful before she would look people in the eyes all the time. A whole lot of new problems showed up then, as Hermione’s eyes could be fierce and sharp as a wild lioness. Some thought she was challenging them, others could swear she was a legillimens. Draco Malfoy had been a steady supporter of that theory until the very day of his death.

“When did you got your ears pierced? You weren’t wearing earrings before.”

“Two weeks ago. I had to _beg_ my mother for it. It’s… It’s so different now. We talk, we do talk now. And they… They are so _interested_ in _my_ world. More than once I caught them reading my school texts. If I weren’t very strict with them, my father would try to brew potions using our stove.”

“You seem happy.”

Her eyes were shining.

“I am. You know how much I missed my family. Of course, things can be difficult now that they aren’t afraid to death of me, like getting my ears pierced, but it’s so much better having them in my life again. I so hope I don’t need to kill them this time.”

“I promise you to do my best so you don’t have to.”

“Thank you, Harry. No, really. _Thank you_. If not by you, I’d have given up by now, died alone in that cell. You were the one who wanted us to travel between worlds if we ever got caught. And you were the one who ordered me to include time travel in the ritual, even after I said it was impossible. Your plan not only saved us all but gave us another chance. A fresh start.”

Harry let the praise wash over him, happily. He tried his best not to get cocky, not to get prideful. Flamel had died because of his pride. But when a pretty girl praised you, it’s hard to hold your humility intact. And Hermione was _beautiful_. Harry had known it for such a long time, but she had spent years not believing it, to the point they had to force her to say she was pretty. Building her self-confidence had been Harry’s life-long project before, but to the last day of their former lifetime, she still had doubts. Because she had spent her muggle childhood feeling ugly, being called ugly, beaver face, bad hair. Because she had gone to Hogwarts and spent half a year with mutations caused by the fragments altering her body, unleashing her dormant genes, giving her a body she couldn’t think as her own, an ugly duckling mind occupying a swan’s body. And when she finally grew comfortable in her bones, there was a war to wage, and people would admire her by her brain, by her power, by her ruthless and never by her beauty.

Never more. Even without the fragments to buff her appearance, her own nutrient potions, and enhancement concoctions had already made her a gorgeous girl. Her bushy hair converted into a mass of honey coloured curls already guaranteed eyes would follow her everywhere. Her straight, white teeth made her smile even prettier, and her new clothes and attitude paired with her incredible intellect would make people pause. She would never be called names again, he would make sure of it. She would be a leader, a true Queen since her rebirth, she would be one of the most important parts of his plan. And his plan was everything, they needed to treat carefully, to stitch their stories together to the point they would believe it true themselves. They needed to be, in a single word, discreet. 

Harry got his mind thread interrupted by the door crashing open violently. Blonde hair on a pale face, silk robes, and Pureblood airs. He felt his heart drop in his chest. 

“I AM FRIGID. MY MOTHER’S PRUDE. I DON’T WANT TO LIVE IN THIS WORLD ANYMORE!”

Harry pinched the bridge of his nose, pressing his eyes closed. He felt a migraine growing like the weeds in Aunt Petunia’s garden, fast and steady. His plans crashed and burned around him, like the enemies of the mighty phoenix, like scraps of thoughts before the unstoppable force of Daphne Greengrass. He got an unshaken impression he should drop all his machinations and start growing crops. Or raising cattle. At the top of some distant mountain. Alone.

“Daphne, you are not frigid,” said Hermione, stifling a laugh. “You are eleven.”

“Why are you dressed like a midget whore? Is your family different in this reality too? Are you a chav now?”

“How do you know what a ch—? Forget it, I don’t want to know. And stop talking about different worlds, Harry wants us to lay low with this. Come on, sit here by my side. I’m dressed like this because I’m being punished.”

“And you are going to be punished too, Ms. Greengrass,” barked Harry, his headache breaking all his stops. “What did we agreed on before coming here? To who else did you shout about different realities? Do you want us to BE LOCKED IN AZKABAN AGAIN?”

Instead of responding, the blond burst into tears. It was so _undaphne_ to cry that it gave him pause. That, and the very stink eye Hermione made at him. She wrapped the taller girl in her arms, muttering something in her ear. Tears streamed down her porcelain face, her nose getting redder and redder, her pristine silk robes getting all wrinkly. The young boy felt a bad taste in his mouth, so he abandoned his seat to kneel next to the crying girl, sliding his hands over her lap, taking her own cold fingers in his, kissing her knuckles quietly.

“Come on, Daph, I’m sorry for shouting at you,” begged him. She shook her head, stifling a sob.

“It’s not your fault. I’m… I am feeling strange. Everything is strange. I’m not myself anymore. I’m… _frigid_.”

“Daphne, I know you had a very… demanding drive before we came back, but it’s normal for a pre-teen girl _not_ to have a sex drive.”

“You don’t understand, Hermione,” Daphne used a hanky to wipe her face. She looked cute with her small nose so red, Harry really needed to put some rein in his freshly started puberty. “When I travelled to Hogwarts the first time I had to take at least three _bathroom breaks_. And my mother… The day I came back, I tried to talk to her while she was bathing, and she shouted at me as if I was committing some kind of crime. And _Astoria_ was crying all day for a toy she wanted, and it was a real, stuffed bear toy, instead of the… other kind. And mother and father are happily married, _monogamously_ married. Believe me, I even searched for Cap. Roberts in my mother’s dresser, tried even to _accio_ it, and nothing. She wears strange clothes, all stuffed up, she talks about _proper behaviour_. She’s a prude, and I don’t even get wet thinking about my own punishment. What is wrong with me?”

“Cap. Roberts?”

“My mother’s plastic helper. _What is wrong with me?_ ”

“How do wizards know about plas—?”

“Hermione, you are missing the point. Daphne, what do you know about this world?”

“Well. Uh, I read some, even if I was scared by my lack of… enthusiasm for life. No Flamel Experiments? Seems quite nice, I think. You don’t think they did something to my family, do you? Some kind of _Greengrass frigifyer_ —”

“For God’s sake, Daphne—“

“For _Merlin_ ’s,”

“Shut up, Harry. For Merlin’s sake, Daphne, there is nothing wrong with you or your family, and in fact, I think I have a theory why you are… a normal, healthy young girl instead of a sex-obsessed tramp. And it’s nothing _they_ did to you, much to the contrary…”

“What are you talking about?”

“You always boasted that you have Veela blood in your line. That’s how you are pretty, sexy, desirable, whatnot. Well, I think that just like Harry and I, you are suffering from the lack of fragments. Without them to fix our birth defects and activate our genes, your Veela blood remains inactive.”

“But I was different even _before_ the Ceremony.”

“Yes, probably because your mother had the fragments and the active Veela blood. Exposure to her aura could _semi-activate_ your  inner Veela. Astoria’s too. At least in theory. So your lack of sex drive can be easily fixed by our very own Ceremony.”

“And my mother’s too? If your theory is right, exposure to _my_ aura would activate her blood, wouldn’t it?”

“Probably. She will never be the woman you knew in your former life, but she would be more… active. Your sister’s too, I think. She is younger, probably the blood would be more intense for her, and when she comes to Hogwarts exposure will be higher. Or we can simply put some fragments in her too…?”

“No fragments distribution for now. We still need to put our hands on the Stone, so, Daphne, I think we’ll need to wait for puberty to strike you, as everybody else does.”

“Not fun, not fun at all. Well, don’t look at me like that, Hermione. My sex drive is important to me, it _defines_ my character, just like you bossy bitchiness does to you.”

“ _What? I am not—_ “

“Stop it, both of you!” Harry rubbed his eyes, carefully not to knock his lenses to the back of his head. The man guaranteed magical fixture for a year, but he didn’t want to bet on it and need to go to Madam Pomfrey to extract magical glass from his brain. If Madam Pomfrey even existed in that world, that is. So many things to check. “I’m sure your drive will be back on track in no time. What we need to discuss now is which house we’ll be in, and how did we have met, because you _had_ to barge in our compartment without a cover up story.”

“Oh, put a sock on it, Potter. Nobody cares what a firstie says or does, not even other firsties and you know it. We simply met on the train and got along. We all meet at Gryffindor or Slytherin? Hermione could probably pass as a foreign Pureblood this time, and red clash horribly with my skin tone, so…”

“How do you know I need to be a Pureblood to be accepted in this Slytherin house?”

“My father never shuts up about Purebloods, in this world. He complains all the time about how muggles and their muggle way are destroying our world. And it looks like Mother actually eats that crap, as she nods and complains about muggle women and their nasty, whorish ways. Remind me to introduce you to her on our Yule break.”

“Can the whore jokes, I know this isn’t my usual dress style but you don’t need to make such a fuss about it. I’ll be twelve in a month, I look older than that if I can say so myself, and I’ve seen younger girls dressed more revealing than that.”

“If my mother’s view about dress codes is the standard here, boys will throw knuts at you when you pass by, Hermione.”

“What! Shut up, Daph,” Hermione crossed her arms over her chest, frowning. “I worth much more than that. Galleons.”

“You worth more than any other girl in that school, Hermione, and if anyone tries to take what’s mine there will be blood.”

“Hey, you should do this bad guy impersonation again. I think I got a little wet.”

Hermione caught Daphne by the back of her robe before she could attack Harry. By the flush on her cheeks, she also liked his tone of voice. Harry thanked Merlin for the blessing of his voice not cracking up in the middle of it. 

“We really need to decide our houses before the snogfest. Harry, I don’t think we should be all together. I know, Daph, I really don’t _want_ to go through more seven years of sleeping in different beds and sneaking around, but we must think about the plan. This world is different from ours, we don’t have the Stone, our powers are very limited and we need to spread out the most we can if we want to build another Court here. I think I want to be a Ravenclaw this time.”

“You just want to read all the books in their secret room. And can you be intelligent in this world? I thought Harry was punishing you.”

“I’m playing the intelligent bimbo character. Probably will throw most people off, and keep them on their toes when handling me. You could try it too, Daphne, even if I have no idea how you could fake intelligence.”

Daphne slid over Hermione’s lap, her smaller chest glued to the older girl’s, their lips with barely some distance between them. Harry adjusted himself in his seat.

“ _Well_ ,” purred the blonde. “You could teach me, Miss Smartypants, we could make some _girl on girl_ _time_.”

 _They are eleven-year-olds, they are eleven-year-olds_ , _they are eleven-year-olds,_ chanted Harry in his mind.

“For a frigid girl, you look very frisky, blondie. Are you sure you want me to teach you, Daphie? I can be _very strict._ ”

“FOR MERLIN’S SAKE THEY’RE ELEVEN YEAR OLDS!”

“Harry?”

“Sorry. Did I said it out loud? Sorry. Uh. Let’s talk about houses, how about it? I agree with Hermione, we shouldn’t be all together, and she should be in Ravenclaw. You should be a Slytherin, Daphne, because, really, you couldn’t be something else. If my history lessons serve me right, and if this Hogwarts is like the one we read about in school, Hufflepuff is a bunch of pussies and Gryffindor is the party house with a big mouth. People expect me to be a Gryff, so I won’t be one. Slytherin would be nice, but we don’t know much about this Voldemort character and if his followers were just goons or dangerous people. Most of them got scot-free after I defeated the nosy guy, so their children are bound to be there. And really, Hermione told me people actually like my mother in this world, so I won’t be in the only place they probably hate her. I’ll be a Claw too.”

“And Ginny?”

“She can be a Gryff, that way we’ll cover three houses. I’ll put a mole in Hufflepuff, maybe they hide some kind of talent there. We need to scout out people for our new Court and start to groom them into our ideals. This power vacuum they’ve been through since Voldemort’s downfall probably let most of these people aimless  and with broken ideas, we need to unite them under our banner before we can start making changes. Also, by my calculations, there should be less than four hundred students at Hogwarts today.”

“Just that? What happened to this world?”

“We never truly solved our birth-rate problem, Daphne. Witches are at their peak of fertility around seventeen and we decline fast, becoming barren by our thirties. Only some avoid that fate, the Weasley clan comes to mind, and probably because some ancestor of them made a deal with some entity for it. We know the Blacks did. The Stone fragments would keep us fertile, even if each pregnancy was more and more difficult, but if they never used the Stone here…”

“So most of the people we know are either dead or never have been born?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Most were pricks anyway. So there’s what? Around ten children per house/year? The dorms will be more silent, that’s for sure.”

“So we agree on Slytherin for Daphne and Ravenclaw for Harry and me? Great. The cover story, as Daphne pointed out, is unnecessary, so we can move on to the next subject.”

“Snogfest?”

Hermione gave them a very predatory smile. 

“Why, Daphne, you took the words from my mouth.”

Harry’s last thought before the warm lilac haze dawned on him was he really needed to put some reign on that puberty thing. Sometime.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here we are for another chapter! And with this, we met all our protagonists, even if briefly. I want to thank you all for the reviews, bookmarks and kudos, and hope you guys send me your thoughts about my story. Are you liking it so far?
> 
> If some still couldn't understand Hermione's punishment, by next chapter we'll see it working. Daphne also will be a little different from other's fanfics, so stay tuned! And, finally, Ginny won't be joining us for some time, as she was born a little late for the story's cutting. Also, I intend to post all the story, all the years, in this single work, so we can say she will join us sometime in the next chapters.
> 
> Hope you liked it and see you soon!
> 
> \---
> 
> EDIT: Gave the grammar some polishing and got rid of some typos. Now it should read better.


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